Erash’s First Dream

You don’t think of yourself as a dreamer. You’ve seen too much to want to surrender to dreams. But as you slip out of consciousness tonight… what you want and what you experience are in stark contrast.

In the resting darkness, the atmosphere around you warms to a temperature that would be uncomfortable for most. Any hint of moisture evaporates from the air. As your senses awaken to this changed reality you’re surrounded by a fire baked scent of burnt earth and sulfur that is at once all-familiar and not at all familiar.

Above everything, a symbol. It burns with the same gold and crimson pulsating embers as the mark that brands your skin, though it is not the same mark. It shimmers in the air before you, a palpable shield, warding whatever lies beyond. You can feel magic all around you. And you know you passed many trials to reach this moment. Your body aches with the strain of battles you do not remember. All for this.

It thrums and draws you nearer. Nearer. At first there is fear and hesitation. You study the symbol. You look at it, memorize its lines and curves. It feels organically familiar, as though it is something you’ve always known, a symbol you’ve seen since birth even though you have no memory of it.

The curtain of light in front of you ripples like the surface of liquid from the point where you make contact. There’s a moment of resistance, then recognition. This mark knows you. You reach for it, and the curtain in front of you shimmers, then parts.

The chamber is small, and the gravity in this space pulls at you strangely. There is no discernible entrance or exit. Floating lamps made of punched brass cast exotic shadows across the paneled walls lined with bookcases. Books of many shapes and sizes adorn the shelves, all of them centuries old. In the center of this room sits a desk, bearing a cone of incense that still smolders in a holder. The smell of cinnamon is heavy in the still air. Next to the incense a strange brass orb made of engraved plates and scattered with intriguing indentations and markings. As your eyes continue their sweep of the room, you see a work table covered haphazardly with thick scrolls, a weathered map hanging on the wall above it. The mark on your arm tingles, like the pins and needles of a limb that’s long been asleep.

You rouse, the smell of cinder in your nostrils, and the heat of elemental fire radiating from you.

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